I got work to do

Back in civilization today, at least from an internet perspective. I found a coffee shop in town to get my internet chores done.

Saturdays are our day off. Sadly, not for the Hindu worship service at the temple a couple of hundred feet from our front foor. Or maybe it’s a Bollywood music festival that kicked off at 5:30 this morning. Hard to tell the difference here. If it’s the former, I’m pretty sure no one is dozing off during the sermons up there.
Between that and the all night stray dog fights combined with the unfinished poured concrete house we attempt to sleep in, a full night’s sleep is a rare treat.
We get an extra hour of lights-on Friday nights so there was a pretty good effort at a Friday night get down judging by the number of 650ml cheap Indian beer bottles on the table at the bar(n) next door when I left and the raucous party games around the community dining room after that. Good night with good people.

It’s a six day work week here. It is hard hard work too. The bulk of the work tends to be moving stuff

Around. A LOT of stuff. Bricks, rocks, dirt, wet cement. Digging holes and filling holes. Sounds like crappy work, I know, but it really is fun. As evidenced by the lack of complaining and the 100% effort everyone puts in. There is also the added benefit of all the Dal Baht (lentils and rice) you can eat. Everyday, lunch and dinner. Sounds boring but it doesn’t get old somehow. Sure. A hamburger and fries would not suck right now. But you get what you get.
So far, I have dug out rocks and some very solid clay from a really long trench for a retaining wall. Built all kinds of seating and steps out of bamboo. Helped stack thousands of bricks, shoveled countless buckets of gravel, started a new camp latrine. Cleaned toilets hauled water and 100 lb sacks of cement. There is still a lot to do but other than a few sore muscles. knees, and my back. I am holding up. 

I addition to the site where we are building the school rooms. There are three other efforts going on.

As All hands and Hearts has only been here for a few weeks. There is still some setup needed. The tents sites are on rice paddy terraces. One wrong step and it is a 3 ft drop to the next terrace. I stayed on base to dig post holes for bamboo fencing in effort to prevent a fall.

One of our major funders, has provided enough money for us to install a couple of water tanks. In the dry season, getting enough water for everyone up on the mountain is pretty tough. Adding  2 20,000 liters of water storage should help. That effort comes with a lot of digging and concrete mixing. Smaller projects but should really benefit.

Which leads me to my fund raiser page again. No pressure but just in case you didn’t get the email. It’s a good cause and no money is wasted.

https://give.allhandsandhearts.org/fundraiser/2468297

I found a coffee shop where there is enough bandwidth to get the pictures I’ve taken so far uploaded to the Google site. Working on the site content from my phone is tough so that is a good place to see what is going on between posts.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NQeEap7jUTwoGJaF7